MINNESOTA
KSTP
By: Rebecca Omastiak
The Diocese of Winona announced a plan to reorganize its parishes on Sunday.
Although the “Vision 2016” plan isn’t yet finalized, diocese leaders said they hope it will address three issues: a shortage of priests to attend to roughly 114 parishes, changes in participation trends, and demographic shifts of both growth and decline in the diocese.
“Nearly half of our parishes have received recommended organizational change as a result of the draft plan,” Msgr. Richard Colletti, Vicar General and Director of Planning for the Diocese, said in a statement. “These may include variations in how parishes are clustered, the residence of a pastor, or the merging of parishes.”
Part of the plan includes moving 21 smaller parishes toward “oratory status.” This means that as they merge with larger parishes, the smaller churches will no longer offer a Sunday/Vigil mass, but could host weddings, funerals and small prayer groups until congregants can no longer maintain the facility and wish to close it.
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